Finally, my iPhone will start making me some money! How? Gigwalk. It’s a relatively new app that I learned about from an article in the Los Angeles Times, so it’s been around a bit and earned some high-profile, credibility-establishing attention. That’s important for something promising to make you money. How does it work? You download the app, sign up through Facebook or create your own login, then start looking for gigs. I live in Philadelphia in Center City, and there are hundreds of available gigs. What are the gigs? They can vary, but it seems the vast majority involve visiting a business and taking pictures and answering some questions about the place. The gigs pay from $3 to $90, but most of the ones I clicked on were in the $5 to $7 range. However, as you gain experience and prove to be reliable, more lucrative gigs await. Maybe! Here’s what a user had to say to the Times: More

Finally there is an iPhone app for Google+. I complained on Twitter this weekend that I was tempted to get an Android phone. Almost! The Google phones already had a G+ app and I was envious. Of course I won’t give up my iPhone 4 until a phone comes along that kicks the shit out of it. That probably will come this fall with the iPhone 5. 😀 Okay, the G+ app is nifty. You don’t get full functionality. No group video chat with hangouts, but who needs that on their phone? Group chat, yes. So my Google+ plus journey continues and the universe expands. There was a hiccup at the beginning when the iTunes App Store released a test version rather than the true release. I downloaded the test version and it was glitchy and the tech heads started to immediately bellyache. Within an hour or two, the correct version was released. Works fine so far.

Tonight I found out William Shatner is on Plus, and he calls us Plusers. And he was complaining that you can only put 5,000 total people in your circles. I hope Google listens to him, because I plan on putting the entire world into Google+.

Yis Goodwin, better known as Nose Go in Philadelphia street-art circles, has been busy designing characters and backgrounds for a developing mobile-app game called Catball. It is currently a Kickstarter project with 18 days to go to reach its goal of $4,000 in funding. You can watch the demo video here. I’m not much of a mobile gaming guy, but I like Nose Go’s art. He got a lot of attention recently from the popular Tyson Bees food truck, which he painted in his crazy, colorful style. I met him sometime in 2007 or ‘08 while I was researching a documentary of Philadelphia graffiti. He is more gallery than street these days, and his next canvas may be your iPhone, iPad and Android (and maybe even Xbox Live and PS3).

This really bugged me when I read about it: Apple is developing a system that would allow concert and sports venues to shut off the video function on your iPhone at arenas or stadiums (stadia?) to prevent unauthorized recording of shows or games. I am absolutely opposed to this. I am not renting my iPhone. I paid for it. I own it. It should be up to venue owners to prohibit recording devices and enforce those bans. More worrisome is the technology. Will governments (police? military?) be able to set up zones where your video-recording capabilities will be disabled? In theory, I am resigned to a future when technology will be messing with other technology. You can already buy devices now that block GPS signals around you. But I don’t have to sit back and say nothing as Apple devises ways to limit the functionality of the devices I pay for. Hey, Steve, when “it just works,” don’t mess with it.

I’ll be in California till the end of the month, so I won’t be posting about tech stuff unless it has to do with photos I take or using the iPhone on the road. I’ll be experimenting with photo apps and I’ll try to share some of the results here. What is that thing in the photo above? That’s a donut shop and car wash. Classic SoCal.

The launch scheduled today of the Space Shuttle Endeavor on its final mission before retirement, which I wrote about earlier this week, was postponed due to a technical problem. The next launch opportunity will be no earlier than Sunday. I flew down to Florida last year to catch the final launch of Discovery but left with only a bag full of souvenir T-shirts because that launch was repeatedly delayed. Good thing I didn’t act on an impulse I had to hop on a flight to see this launch.

Cloud Girlfriend was released this week. I was a bit skeptical about whether this thing was legit or some kind of publicity scam. Originally, the concept I was led to believe was that the service would artificially create a girlfriend experience online that you could interact with in some fashion. However, Cloud Girlfriend was unveiled to be a kind of pretend dating service for people who assume fantasy online personas. Since I wrote about it before, I felt obligated to provide this update. The initial concept the company put forth was intriguing. The reality was disappointing, kind of like a bad blind date.

In February, I wrote about IntoNow, the app that listens to your TV and can tell you what you are watching. It was reported this week that Yahoo! will acquire the start-up for as much as $30 million. The iPhone app debuted on Jan. 31.

Last week I said that I was testing some photo apps on my iPhone. The most impressive has been Microsoft’s Photosynth, which creates photo panoramas. It’s very easy to use and I was eager to show off my results. WordPress.com won’t allow me to embed a photosynth, as they are called, so you can view them here.